


Heterochromatic

by orphan_account



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt, Guilt, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 10:02:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4096771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in an Alternate Universe where Alfons Heidrech doesn't die in our world and can close the gate from his side, Edward and Alphonse are able to stay in Amestris with everyone they cared about from before - including Roy. Ed, crippled with guilt from all that has happened and ridden with self destructive impulses decides to make a decision that he thinks will help Roy for the better, but isn't what Roy wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heterochromatic

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for any spelling and grammar mistakes, I didn't have anyone to Beta this fic so it's all proofread by me, which of course makes it prone to quite a few mistakes. Also, mentions of eye horror/gore, but none too detailed. This fic was loosely based off http://obersten.tumblr.com/post/115800402620/self-destructive-ed-that-means-well-but-still and credit for the idea goes to him.

            Ed took a long look at the shining silvery moon outside. That was one thing that was the same between the two worlds, he thought to himself. The moon was a constant: it was always there; a meteor suspended in space, perfectly positioned to reflect the sun's light to whichever part of the sky was shrouded in darkness. Thousands of years ago it had glimmered in the night sky, it still did, and still _would_ until the sun burned itself out. When Ed had been in the other world, he had learned a few words form other languages, mainly what was called Latin. The Latin word for moon, "luna," was a lot prettier sounding than just "moon," if Ed was being perfectly honest. It was full tonight, illuminating his sectioned off area of the hospital that had been overflowing with civilians and military officials after the battle. He was lucky, his injuries hadn't been that severe, but he had gotten a spot in the hospital anyway, that could have gone to so many other children and mothers and officers…

            His thoughts were drifting again, as they seemed to so often lately. No matter where he started or what God forsaken route his brain took, it always seemed to end in the same place: feeling guilty for, well, just about everything. Generally, the guilt was over something more general, like the fact the doctors hadn't even hesitated to put him in a ward with extremely important and heavily injured men, even though he hadn't been military for over two years. Hell, he hadn't even been in this world for over two years. Not to mention the battle had been his fault, and nobody would even fucking be alive if it weren't for Alfons. Ed felt tears come to his eyes when he thought of his other world brother, and friend. Though an atheist, he could only pray that after Alfons had closed the gate from the other side, he had lived, although the alchemist knew how slim the chances of that were. The blonde boy clenched his automail fist, the shine of the metal illuminated in the moonlight. The fact he still had two steel limbs was a permanent reminder of the sin that had started it all, and just how far back-reaching Ed's guilt was. Although he'd always said he'd get his body back to the way it was, in the end, Alphonse getting out of the damn suit of armor was all the mattered to him. He could stay "fullmetal" forever, after all, he more or less deserved it.

            A sound from the next cot over jolted Edward out of his thoughts, and he instinctively brought his hands together as if to transmute his automail into a blade. Another, softer noise was emitted, and the young man laughed to himself silently, half out of relief, half out of disbelief at his own paranoia. It was only none other than Roy Mustang snoring away, louder than a tractor. It had been sheer dumb luck that the nurses had placed Roy and Ed on adjacent cots. The fullmetal alchemist laughed noiselessly again, thinking about how _pissed_ he would have been four years ago to be in the same _room_ as _Roy fucking Mustang_ for more than a few minutes, let alone be bedridden next to him over multiple nights. Edward gently drew back the curtain on the partition that separated the two men's bed, moonlight slowly washing over Mustang's face. His eyepatch was off, and Ed was able to glimpse the disfigured indent that had once been Roy's left eye. Ed gulped, feeling guilt wash over him. The incident with Archer hadn't been directly his fault, Ed had been seconds away from death when that had all gone down, in what seemed now like a past life. When it was this late, and he was running off a lack of sleep and nutrition, his body aching and confused from the first fight and use of alchemy it had seem in years, everything that had gone down throughout the course of his life seemed like a dream. Watching the sleeping man before him, Ed felt like an intruder that had seen something they shouldn't have. Roy's sleeping face was relaxed, vulnerable, his right eye twitching under his eyelid as he dreamed. His black hair was mussed and greasy, as if he hadn't showered in days. Which was plausible from what Ed had heard about Mustang's past few years, via reports from Hawkeye and half-heard snippets of conversation from the nurses about the fall of the once-mighty Colonel.

            It pained Edward to see anyone undeserving of it in pain, but there was something raw and gut wrenching about his former superior officer reduced to his current state. Strangers may have seen it as only the loss of an eye, but Ed knew the toll it had had on Mustang. The former colonel had given up on alchemy, given up on his ambitions to become head of the state to make sure that no more unjustified wars were fought at the expense of thousands of lives. And, unlike the so-called "true law" of equivalent exchange, he hadn't gained from any of it. Even though Roy tried to keep up the same confident demeanor as before, Ed could see through it to Roy's fragile state. The man was lost without someone to guide him, something to drive him, a source of ambition in his life. And, whether it was logical or not, Ed felt responsible. It was him who had dragged Mustang down this road to begin with, getting everyone's lives tangled together like a spider web that only took one cut to fall apart. It had started with Hughes, for Mustang at least, and was still falling apart.

            The voice at the back of his brain sounded different depending on what it was guilting him for. Sometimes it sounded like the gate children, other times his father, other times Envy the bastard homunculus. The worst though, was when it sounded like Al….

            "Brother, how could you?"  

            "Brother, you need to fix your mistakes."

            "Brother, this is all your fault!"

            "If you hadn't made me do the human transmutation, brother, everything would have been fine."

            "Brother, what have you ever done for the Colonel? After all he's done for you?"

 

            Because when it sounded like Al, it was usually right. Al was right.

            Al had gotten his body and memories back.

            Teacher had been reacquainted with her child, for a little while.

            Roy had lost his best friend, his left eye, his future. Yet, he'd put his career on the line more than once for Ed's sake, risked his life for the Elrics, and offered Ed his position in the military so he could get his brother and his bodies back. Yet what had Ed ever done for him, besides call him useless and a bastard and mock him behind his back?

            It was funny. His first priority had always been Al, of course, even on the other side of the gate. But in the rare moments he wasn't focused on Al and getting back to him, he had found his mind wandering to Mustang, of all people. Winry and teacher and Elicia too of course, but _Mustang?_ It wasn't until they had both been admitted into the hospital two nights ago that Ed had figured out why. He _owed_ him. Equivalent exchange was a bullshit principal, but it had to be obeyed. And this morning, Ed had figured out just how he could pay the black-haired man back.The fullmetal alchemist certainly couldn't bring the late Brigadier General back from the dead, but all of this time studying human transmutation with Al had led him through the depths of several unique areas of alchemy, including botany, biological alchemy and chimeras, and soul bonding. So, Ed knew that what he was trying to do was possible. He had sketched out an array with a toothpick on the hospital tray during yesterday's lunch, then quickly scribbled it out before anyone (namely Roy) could see. There was no way for him to test it, save on himself, but he was sure it would work. The array was more or less a scaled down human transmutation circle combined with the dual-array system that helped created the Philosophers stone, and of course, Eckhart's gate. Ed knew it would work, the chances that his calculations were off after all this time spent as an alchemic prodigy were next to none.

            Earlier, when the nurse had come to ask Ed if he needed anything, he had asked for sleeping pills under the guise he had crippling insomnia. The nurse had happily obliged, giving Ed an entire bottle to "take as needed." Boy, he had thought, these guys put a lot of trust in their military patients. Not that he was really considered one anymore, but it had been a lucky break on his end either way. Then, while Roy had been in the bathroom for last time before 'lights out', Ed had ground up a couple of them and stirred them into his drink. Mustang was out like a light half an hour later, snoring the night away. It really was beneath Ed to go to a low such as drugging someone's drink, but he knew it would help his former superior officer more in the long run than a deep night's sleep would hurt him now.

            The last thing he needed to do was draw the circles. From experience, he knew his own blood was the strongest reactant when doing a transmutation of this sort. Ed rolled up his left pant leg, and, as quietly as possible, transmuted his right arm into a blade, making a shallow gash in the flesh. Used to pain by now, the fullmetal didn't even bat an eyelash as the blade cut into the skin and blood began to pour down his leg. Before his cells could stanch the bleeding, the young man drew the necessary transmutation circles, turning his arm back into a hand again so he could transmute. With one last inhale, he clapped his hands together, and transmuted.

 

*****************************************************************************************************************************************

 

            When Roy woke up, the darkness was different shrouding his left eye seemed different than usual. Less "there's literally no eye there how could you possibly see" and more "there's something covering your eye." Which, was obviously impossible, seeing as Archer had made sure the last thing that Roy's left eye was ever going to see was his smirking, inhuman face. Never one to believe in miracles, and certainly not a man of God, Roy knew there was no way his eye could have been restored. Nonetheless, he reached up to touch the area that had once homed an eyeball. The rough scarring on his upper cheek was still there, but instead of an empty socket, he _felt_ something in there. Reeling backwards, Roy banged his head against the wall in disbelief. Surely this had to be a dream, there was no way in heaven or hell that he could have gotten his eye back. He'd seen the mangled remains of it himself, first hand. The man had to be dreaming, but then again, you weren't supposed to be able to feel pain in dreams… right? And the throbbing lump on his head definitely said otherwise. Raising his hand again, tentatively, his fingers crawled past the scar tissue and onto what Roy would have thought was a closed eyelid, had he not known better. He pulled at the loose skin, surprised when he felt pain, and even more surprised when he noticed the crack of light sneaking in from under the taut lid. His brain, remembering what it was like to have two eyes, opened the lid the rest of the way, and light flooded both fields of his vision. Blinking, once, twice, three times… too many times to count, the former colonel could only sit shock-still in his hospital gown, his eyes wide in disbelief. After a moment, he picked up on something that felt slightly _off_. A sick feeling in his stomach, Roy raced to the bathroom and forced himself to stare into the mirror. It wasn't the right eye staring back at him that made him lean over the sink and lose the contents of last night's dinner, it was the left eye - the wrong eye. Instead of the near-black iris that it formerly contained, it held hostage a bright golden one, amber flecks dancing within. Roy screwed his eyes shut tightly, pinched his leg, _desperately_ tried to get himself to wake up from this terrible nightmare. But he couldn't. He wasn't dreaming.

            Rushing back to his cot, he threw open the curtains on the adjacent bed, bracing himself internally for what he would find. Edward sat cross-legged on the bed, facing the wall, a gash on his left - that Roy could have sworn hadn't been there before  - exposed. Roy knew the bastard had heard him, yet the fullmetal continued to show his back. Mustering up the voice he had formerly used to give his team, or Ed, orders, Roy spoke.

            "Edward. Turn around right this instant. I know you know I'm here."                    

            The blond ever so slowly stood up, making the right side of his face visible first. And then, the left. Roy almost lost the contents of his stomach again. The empty, marred, scarred socket didn't look _right_ on Ed's face, not that it had looked right on his own either, but he had grown used to it. Edward's right eye, golden with flecks of amber, matched what was now _Roy's_ left eye, as a result of whatever cruel and twisted joke Ed had decided to play.

            Roy's tone was icily cold, the way he might speak to a criminal. "What the _fuck_ did you do, fullmetal?" He interrogated, his fists clenched at his sides.

            Edward smiled sadly. "You needed it more than I did. Besides, I owed you." The alchemist's steel right arm moved forward as if to touch Roy, but dropped reluctantly at the last moment.

            "When." The flame alchemist started, clenching his teeth. "When. When did I EVER say to you that I NEEDED an eye?" He was fuming, his shoulders squared and fists clenched as if ready to strike. "What EVER made you THINK that what I NEEDED, was an eye?" Mustang's voice quavered as it rose, his entire body shaking.

            "Roy." Ed began, and Mustang flinched; his former subordinate had never addressed him by his first name before. "Roy, look at you. You hadn't done alchemy for three years, you gave up your rank because of your injury, and you were depressed, isolating yourself from the people you love and not wanting to do anything to help yourself!" The blond took a breath, looking at the ground. "This is your chance. You have your alchemy, you can climb the ranks in the military again, you can _change_ things. After a serious battle like this, people will be looking for a strong leader. You, Roy, they're looking for you." Finished with his little inspirational speech, Ed looked up at him. Without both of his youthful eyes, once full of stubbornness and life, Ed looked like a war veteran, much older than his 18 years. It made Roy want to throw up, or cry, or maybe both. He barely even looked like Ed anymore. The young man's blond hair was loose, instead of in its former braid, and he was only an inch or two shorter in height than Roy. His lips were chapped, there was a dark circle under his remaining eye, and dried blood covered his leg. Quite frankly, he looked like he had aged twenty years while on the other side of the gate, instead of just three. But that didn't excuse what he had done.

            "Maybe I did give up alchemy, and my position in the military. Maybe I did isolate myself because I _couldn't fucking bare_ to have the people I love see me at my weakest, at my lowest. But does that give you any right to think you know me, or know what I want? Even if I did want my eye back, even if I thought that would change absolutely everything, I didn't want _your_ damn eye! The same bullshit you just spewed could be said for yourself too. You have your alchemy back, Al has his body back, you could have become world-renowned alchemists together! But instead, you decided to be an impulse-driven teenager again and did, well, whatever the fuck this is!" Roy stopped, out of breath, processing what had just come out of his mouth. One look at Ed said that the words had hit home harder than he intended. Ed's jaw was clenched, and he was avoiding looking Roy in the face.

            "I owed you. You supported Al and I through all those years, and it's my fault Hughes is dead, and it's my fault you lost your eye, and your best friend, and your job, and your life! It's my fault, and I had to do something about it, dammit." The words were barely a whisper, just loud enough for Roy to hear. "You never had to help me. But you did. And I never had to pay you back, but I did. Equivalent exchange, Mustang. I learned more about that than I would have liked, the hard way. So can't you just accept this is the only way I know how to give back…?" Ed's voice trailed off and Roy swore he could have heard a single tear hit the ground, but when he looked up at Ed again the young man's eyes were dry.

            Mustang sat down on the hospital bed, his head in his hands, emotion overwhelming him. There was too much to think about, too much he could say, too much he could never possibly say. And out of all the things he could have possibly said, he for whatever reason decided to go with "I missed you, you know." The blush rising to his cheeks, he meant to internally lecture himself but, used to hours alone in the cold talking to nobody, let it slip out. "God damn it, right after I yelled at him too," he mumbled.

            "Been talking to yourself much?" Ed said in a teasing yet still shaky voice, sitting down on the bed next to Mustang. Much to the man's chagrin, he felt himself grow even redder, and a quick glance at Ed's half smile told him the fullmetal was enjoying his embarrassment. The two sat in an awkward yet peaceful silence for a moment, Roy trying to covertly sneak glances at Ed when he thought the other man wouldn't notice. His face, though marred by the damaged eye socket, really was beautiful, Roy noted. A part of him wondered if anybody had seen him like that in the past three years, or if he was just another that had been made invalid by war.

            "That look suits you nicely," Ed mused, tearing Roy out of his thoughts and making him realize he'd been staring. "It kind of gives off a heterochromatic vibe."

            Roy's laugh was cut off by his face turning dark. "You can undo this, right? I don't care how beneficial this could be, it's your eye. And it belongs in your head."

            "Dammit, I thought you were over that bit." Ed sighed, twirling a lock of hair around an automail finger. "It's a lot harder to undo than do, you know that from being an alchemist. I'm not going to lie, I know the array to undo it. But I want you to at least see if it helps you, having both your eyes back."

            "Ed… I know you feel guilty, but how do you think I feel? Knowing I'm walking around with your eye where I'm supposed not supposed to have one. I know you said equivalent exchange, but how am I supposed to pay you for this?"

            The blond shrugged, turning his body so he was only a few inches away, parallel to Roy. "You don't have to pay _me_ back. Pay _Amestris_ back. You can do a lot more good for the people with two eyes than I could ever do with one."

            "You're possibly the only person in the world who's more stubborn than me," Roy relented with a melancholy grin. "I'm not saying thank you, because I didn't ask for this, and I'm not saying you're right, either. All I'm saying is I don't feel like arguing with you for literally my entire life, because even then I'll still lose. But if… if I'm going to take this from you, you have to promise me something."

            "And that would be…?" Ed asked, face suddenly pale.

            "Don't give up on getting your body back. Don't give up on alchemy. Don't give up on your brother, and most importantly, don't give up on yourself," Roy said with a firm expression, sticking his hand out in gesture for the other alchemist to shake it.

            Grinning at him, the smile lighting up his eye, Ed gripped Roy's hand tightly. "I promise."


End file.
